Worry all the time? Here's what you can do about anxious thoughts.
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Thoughts influence feelings influence behaviors.
This might be common sense or perhaps it’s something you haven’t considered: your thoughts influence your feelings and your feelings influence your behaviors.
Think about behaviors that feel problematic to you, or that you would like to change. Perhaps there are whole aspects of your life where you’d like to see yourself acting differently or showing up in some other way. Most likely there are challenging feelings happening in these situations and these difficult feelings often lead to behaviors that help you feel better in the moment (even if they aren’t meaningful or healthy or actually what you want for your life).
It can take a bit of detective work but for most people, if you’re not feeling great about something there are a number of thoughts and beliefs that might be showing up as well.
An example
John is based on a lot of clients I work with. John gets irritable easily. He finds himself having little patience for anyone at work and he easily shifts to anger with his partner and children. He doesn’t like this and it feels out of his control at times. It is easy for him to see the cause of the irritable behavior, he seems to be in a constant state of stress and low-grade (or full-blown) anxiety. Everything in his environment seems to set him off. What’s a little harder to notice is that John lives with a constant stream of distressing thoughts. He lives most of the time in a state of fortune telling - worry thoughts about what will happen in the future. Or he gets stuck on one particular thought and can’t get it out of his head (also known as rumination). Or he thinks about how grouchy he was with someone he cares about and keeps thinking regretful thoughts about something in the past.
You can see the pattern of what’s happening. John has a constant stream of distressing thoughts. These effect his emotions. He feels anxious and irritable much of the time. This leads to angry behaviors that he’s not happy about.
A key premise of therapy (and specifically Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT) is that if you want to feel better and live better you need to pay attention to your thoughts. Doing so can shift your mood and feelings and lead to different (and hopefully more meaningful) behaviors. Below are some ideas of how you can begin to relate to your thoughts differently.
Keep a thought log. Or journal.
Start by noticing the thoughts that are coming up and the impact that they have on you. This is huge! Often we go about our day not even noticing the “narrator” in our minds. Our minds are delivering thought after thought after thought about the situation we’re in, beliefs about ourselves, or beliefs about others. Noticing thoughts is a simple task but takes some practice.
One of the easiest ways to do this is to keep a thought log. You can find lots of examples online for tracking various aspects of your thoughts. You can also keep a simple note on your phone. An easy method is to write down:
the challenging thought,
what was going on at the time the thought occurred,
how this thought made you feel, and
how you acted because of the thoughts.
That’s it - that’s a thought record.
As you do this you might begin to notice patterns. Certain thoughts continue to show up. Perhaps thoughts where you evaluate yourself in a negative light or where you get stuck in problematic beliefs about others. Or thoughts that you might classify as regretting the past or fearing the future. You might start to label these thought patterns, e.g. fortune-telling thoughts, self-critical thoughts, judgmental thoughts, etc.
As you notice these thought patterns it can be helpful to consider what is happening that triggers these thoughts in the first place. What was going on when you started thinking this way? Is there a situation or setting where they show up more? This can be helpful information because sometimes we can make changes in the setting or situation that can help us shift our thoughts.
Another approach is journaling. This is an amazingly rich and creative way to become more familiar with your thoughts. There are lots of ways to do this. You can journal about whatever comes to mind or you can use a journal prompt about a specific topic. What matters here is that you get pen to paper with no editing. Externalizing your thoughts, actually writing them down and seeing them, can help you begin to notice challenging thoughts and thought patterns.
Restructuring thoughts
As you start to notice thought patterns you can see which patterns are problematic for you. These thoughts are often cognitive distortions - thought patterns that are based in some distorted or limited version of reality. The good news is that once you start noticing these problematic thought patterns you can change them. (Read more about cognitive distortions).
First, really examine the thought. Check the facts around it. Is it true? Is it always true? Often when we actually look at a thought we can find that there are other ways to think about the situation.
Then, see if there is a more useful thought that fits the facts. This isn’t you fooling yourself or pretending something isn’t difficult. You are dealing with reality and what’s really going on for you. But, is there a way to state the situation that doesn’t have the same impact on your emotions?
For example, here are two thoughts about the same topic.
I get angry at everyone. I’m ruining all my relationships.
I struggle with anger in many of my relationships. While it has impacted some of them I’m working on improving how I interact with others.
Both of these thoughts are about the same thing: someone who has trouble with anger impacting their relationships. But do you notice a difference in how you feel reading these? Which one feels more workable?
Creating space between you and your thoughts
We so easily get hooked by our thoughts. Without evening noticing, we believe the thought that shows up in our mind and we act based on what the thought is telling us. The thought has us hooked. Another way of considering this is that there are thoughts that we buy into without even noticing. And when we buy into them our mood, feelings and behaviors are all affected.
What’s interesting is that we don’t have to do this. We don’t have to buy into thoughts. Chances are you don’t buy into some thoughts already. For example you might have a thought “I’d like some ice cream right now.” You might then notice yourself thinking more about ice cream, you might notice the urge to eat ice cream, you might even remember the last delicious ice cream you had. But you choose not to eat ice cream. We can do this with any thought we have. We can build the capacity to observe and then choose how we respond rather than just get hooked.
A simple method for doing this is to begin to label your thoughts when you have them. Add “I’m having the thought” in front of any thought you have and see if you notice a different feeling about it. So:
Because I’m always angry I ruin all my relationships.
I’m having the thought that because I’m always angry I ruin all my relationships.
Notice the space that is created by labeling a thought as a thought? This space allows you a moment to notice that you have a choice. How do you want to react to this thought now that you notice it?
Create a new way of relating to your thoughts.
Ultimately whether you keep a thought record, try journaling or simply practice labeling your thoughts, the goal is to relate to your thoughts in a new way. With practice you can create some space between you and your thoughts and begin to notice problematic patterns. You can change these patterns as well. All of these allow you to experience your thoughts differently which can have a significant impact on your emotions and behaviors. Ultimately, you can act in ways that feel more meaningful and rich.